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THE 



GATHERING, PACKmG, TRANSPOPJATIOK 



AND SALE OF 



ERESH VEGETABLES AND FRUITS. 



COMPETENT INSPECTION 



FREE MARKETS FOR PRODUCERS. 



(Read before the American Public Health Association, Philadelphia, 18'?4.) 
By SAMUEL C? BUSEY, M.D., Washington, D. C. 



(Ix^ /At [Reprint from THE SANITARIAN, April, 1875.] 

^^'^ 



NEW YOKE: 
SANITARIAN PUBLICATION OFFICE, 234 BROADWAY, 

OPPOSITE THE POST-OFFICE. 

18Y5. 



-^2 






K 



^^ 



THE GATHERING, PACKING, TEANSPORTA- 
TION AND SALE OF FRESH VEGETABLES 
AND FRUITS.— COMPETENT INSPEC- 
TION AND FREE MARKETS FOR 
PRODUCERS. 



(Read before the American Public Health Association, Philadelphia, 18'74.) 
By Samuel C. Busey, M. D., Washington, D. C. 



It is not my purpose, at present, to discuss this question in all its 
important relations to the health of cities and of communities of con- 
sumers, but briefly to invite the attention of this association to a few 
suggestive inquiries, with the view of securing, through a competent 
committee, a thorough consideration of the effects upon public health, 
of the deterioration of fresh vegetables and fruits, as offered for sale in 
the markets of the principal cities of this country, and how far this 
deterioration is attributable to the manner of gathering, mode of pack- 
ing, and transportation from the farm or garden to the city markets. 

No one will maintain that masses of consuijiers can be supplied 
with vegetables and fruits in the same state of freshness and perfection 
as the rural population, for all must admit that under the most favora- 
ble conditions, with every requisite care, many vegetables and fruits 
rapidly lose freshness, flavor and nutrient qualities. The state of per- 
fect maturity speedily passes, and deterioration and decay begin. So, 
likewise, must it be conceded that, as a rule, fresh and mature vegeta- 
bles, in their proper seasons, contribute to enjoyment and health ; and, 
in the country, rarely provoke disease ; and, furthermore, I need hardly 
remind you that, in our American cities, the summer intestinal dis- 
eases and digestive troubles usually begin with the introduction of cer- 
tain fresh vegetables. Here I will be met with the objection that the 
intestinal diseases mostly prevail among very young children, who are 
consumers of vegetables and fruits to a very limited extent, and that 
the rising temperature, so necessary to the growth and maturity of 
vegetables, together with the foul exhalations and improper hygienic 
conditions, contribute chiefly to the production of the wide-spread 
epidemics of intestinal diseases which annually decimate the infantile 
population. The influence of these agencies I concede, but I am im- 
spresed with the conviction that intestinal diseases as frequently find 



4 VEGETABLES AND FKTJITS. 

their cause in that which is ingested as in that which is smelled or in- 
haled. The cause is often something more tangible and gustatory than 
the foetid and subtle emanations which hjgienists have striven so long 
to define and to circumscribe. I am disposed to shield Providence from 
the alleged agency in the causation of many of the " ills which flesh is 
heir to," and to ascribe them to the indulgence of our own insatiate 
thirst and fondness for the " good things of this world." Even among 
very young children, the intestinal diseases are frequently directly 
traceable to the ingestion of unwholesome fruits and vegetables ; nor is 
the nursling exempt from the danger, even though the deleterious in- 
fluence may only reach it through the defective milk supply of the 
mother feeding upon immature or deteriorated vegetables and fruits. 
In this connection, permit me, briefly, to call your attention to a few 
admitted facts. Not that I wish to use them to maintain any exclusive 
doctrine of causation, or to construct any new theory, but rather to 
extend the field of inquiry, and to direct your studies away from a too 
exclusive consideration of the very prevalently received opinions and 
theories in regard to the ever fermenting and wide spreading agency of 
bad smelling, impure and foul exhalations, as the chief and segregate 
cause of summer intestinal diseases. 

Intestinal diseases, both among adults and children, are compara- 
tively rare in the farming regions, and both classes of the rural popula- 
tion, adult and infantile, are more generally consumers of fruits and vege- 
tables, and suffer less detriment therefrom, than like classes of the popula- 
tion of cities. Far the larger proportion of infantile intestinal diseases 
occurs among those beyond the age of six months, that is, subsequent to 
the period at which the natural aliment is usually considered by the 
laity adequate to the demands of growth and development ; and far 
the larger percentage of mortality occurs among the children of the 
poor and squalid residents of cities — the class necessarily the most in- 
discreet consumers of cheap and deteriorated vegetables and fruits. 
Statistics establish the greater prevalence of these diseases between the 
ages of six and thirty months, and among the artificially fed; and 
greater proportionate mortality in the densely populated districts, and 
among the children of the poorer classes. Can it be that those under 
six months, those advanced beyond thirty months, and those nursed at 
the breast, are less exposed to and less impressible by atmospheric in- 
fluences ? Undoubtedly the intercurrent affections and developmental 
peculiarities of the period exercise very considerable influence in pre- 
disposing to intestinal disease ; but, assuredly, improper alimentation 
must constitute the chief among the many factors concerned in the 
etiology. It is then manifest that intestinal diseases are most preva- 
lent during the warmer months of the year — June, July, August and 
September, when vegetables and fruits are most abundant and deterior- 
ation most rapid — are proportionately far more frequent among communi- 
ties of consumers, who can only obtain supplies by purchase, and are 
most fatal among the poor, who from necessity become the purchasers 
of the cheapest and most deteriorated. 

These are significant facts, not adduced to disprove the manifold ill 
effects of a bad atmosphere, and of foetid exhalations, but to invite 
your attention to the consideration of another, and perhaps, as frequent 



VEGETABLES AND FKUITS. 5 

and direct an agency in the causation of intestinal diseases : and to il- 
lustrate, as well, the comparative innoouousness of fresh, mature and 
properly gathered fruits and vegetables, as to demonstrate their per- 
nicious and disease-producing qualities as supplied to and consumed by 
the inhabitants of cities. 

To further elaborate the distinct question here at issue — the agency 
of immature and deteriorated fruits and vegetables in producing intes- 
tinal diseases, and the more strikingly to exhibit the qualitative changes 
which they speedily undergo after preparation for market — I will select 
a few of those most generally consumed, and describe the mode of 
gathering, packing and conveying, and their condition when exposed 
for sale. 

The Irish potato, perhaps the most popular aliment supplied from 
the " truck farm," when mature and properly cooked, is a wholesome 
and nutritious article of diet, carries well, and preserves its flavor and 
nutrient qualities, even in very warm weather, for a reasonable time. 
It has a stage of ripeness, marked by a thick and firmly adherent skin, 
and when cooked breaks upon very gentle pressure, into a semi-dry mealy 
mass. In this condition the producer supplies them to his own familj^. 
Young children consume them with comparative impunity. In the early 
spring we are usually supplied from Bermuda, with a variety which, as 
a rule is in a fair state of preservation, but the general demand and 
high price soon draw a supply in succession from Savannah, Charleston, 
Norfolk, and the farms in the immediate vicinity. The tubers are gath- 
ered, not because they are ripe, but because they are merchantable, that 
is, have attained sufficient size, perhaps washed, better not, packed in 
barrels and transported to the jolace of sale. In this tender, succulent 
and growing state they are easily bruised, have a smooth, thin, delicate 
and slightly adherent surface covering, and we find them in the market 
with partially peeled and ragged surfaces, the loosened parts of the cuticle 
partially attached to the remaining adhering pieces. These are the un- 
avoidable results of gathering before maturity, rough handling, im- 
proper packing, and of the heating process — preliminary to other de- 
teriorating changes, through which they wholly or partially pass, before 
they are exposed for sale. Tl:e extent of these degenerative changes 
is proportionate to the elapse of time and closeness of packing, 
and perhaps also to the mode of transportation. The heating, 
or rather steaming, process favors the detachment of the partially 
developed cuticle, as it does of the matured skin. I need hardly 
inform you that the destruction or removal of the surface cover- 
ing, which nature provides for protection and preservation, favors and 
hastens the decay of all perishable fruits and vegetables. Such tubers 
cook waxy, cut cheese-like, bite doughy, and taste greenish and weedy. 
They are served upon our tables with savory dressings, and eaten with 
relish, but they are only partially digestible and, in the main, pass 
from the bowels in white, doughy, unaffected lumps. Of the con- 
sumers, some escape unhurt, some suffer a pang or two, others, for- 
tunately, purge freely, but the less fortunate suffer more seriously. To 
many young children, whose digestive powers are inadequate to the 
complete digestion of any starchy aliment, these tubers, mashed and 
commingled with savory gravies, are fed as choice and nutrient morsels, 



t) VEGETABLES AND FEUITS. 

and when sickness and suffering come, the temperature — not above 70^^ 
at mid-day — or some distant slaughter-house or bone-boiling establish- 
ment is charged with the dire calamity. The potato probably ripens 
from exterior to center, hence, after cooking, it may frequently be ob- 
served that immediately under the apparently ripened skin, a layer of 
greater or less thickness, according as the stage of ripeness has ad- 
vanced, of a semi-dry farinaceous mass, will scale from a firm and waxy 
central portion, so that one may be deceived by the manifest external 
evidences of ripeness. The potato deteriorates by growing out or 
germinating. If left in the ground long after maturity, during a grow- 
ing season, from one or more of the buds or eyes will grow appendages 
resembling in every respect the mother tuber — they are, in fact, homo- 
logous outgrowths. The presence of such a tumor is the evidence of a 
second growth, and if broken off, as is usually the case when offered for 
sale, the surface is denuded at the point of attachment. When im- 
properly stored, and especially during the later spring months, the 
tubers germinate, and from each eye rootlets shoot forth, which are 
likewise broken off before being exposed for sale, but the surface ex- 
hibits no denudation, and the condition can only be detected by a very 
careful inspection of the buds, and, perhaps, a softer feel. The density 
may have diminished because of the commencement of germination. 
Freezing destroys the organization of the potato, and with thawing the 
putrefactive changes begin. Notwithstanding, it is a very common 
occurrence for dealers to oifer and for consumers to purchase frozen 
potatoes, " The potato," says Pavy, " is made uj) of cells, penetrated 
and surrounded by a watery albuminous juice, and filled with a num- 
ber of starch granules." Cooking coagulates the albumen and the starch 
granules absorb the watery part, hence the cells are distended, and their 
cohesion being destroyed the potato breaks down into a " loose farina- 
ceous mass." With a knowledge of the structure and composition of 
the tuber, it is easily understood why bruising, peeling, germination 
and freezing should promote degenerative change. 

The pea, as a fresh vegetable, is eaten unripe, but should have 
reached the stage of maturity when the seed husk is filled. It, like the 
potato, comes first from the far south, and successively from nearer 
regions. As a fresh vegetable they bear transportation badly, soon 
wilt, heat, wither, shrink, fade and deteriorate after having been 
gathered and packed. It is a tedious crop to gather and a bulky pro- 
duct to transport. The producer gathers his table supply during the 
forenoon, perhaps before the morning sun has evaporated the dew 
from the leaves and seed pods. Upon his table the pea is a delicious, 
inviting and richly flavored vegetable, seeming to dissolve during the 
process of mastication, and digests without inconvenience. For the 
market the crop is more frequently gathered when too far advanced 
towards ripeness, than before the fitted stage of development — and for 
the obvious reason that transportation is better borne and the loss is 
less from shrinkage. Usually the gathering is done during the heat of 
the day, because of less injury to the vine while wilting under a blaz- 
ing sun, but the prudent farmer never enters his pea patch until the 
gathering is ready for his " pickers " — that is, when the hand can pluck 
.a number of pods at a single grasp, for he wisely estimates the cost of 



VEGETABLES AND FRUITS. 7 

time lost in clutching at single pods, and knows too well that the loss 
in price by a few days' delay will be abundantly made up by the in- 
creased measurement from the too far advanced and ripened seed 
pods. Thus gathered, they are immediately packed in barrels and 
transported to market. Very speedily the heating process begins, 
and in a few hours the temperature in the center of such a bulk 
will rise considerably above blood heat, and when emptied up- 
on the salesman's stand, the subsequent morning, the loosened 
bulk will emit an amazing volume of smoke — condensing steam ; 
or perhaps more time has elapsed, and the heating process has 
been completed, succeeded by other destructive changes. The seed 
pods have lost their fresh and pea-green color, their crispness and re- 
siliency, — have faded and withered, — flattened, as the salesman will tell 
you, by pressure, but in fact by the loss of natural moisture expelled 
by the steaming process. The contained seeds, the only edible portion, 
have lost entirely their peculiar luscious flavor, acquired toughness, 
and, to a greater or less degree, hardness, and the seed husk no longer 
submits to ordinary digestion. Each seed must be crushed between 
the molars, or else may roll through the alimentary canal, except for the 
preliminary cooking, conditioned for a vigorous vegetation. The seed 
pulp contains all the nutrient qualities, but cannot be separated from 
the husk in the green state. The husk acquires firmness as the seed 
pulp progresses to complete development, and loses color through the 
ripening process. It is better to select for the table undeveloped rather 
than past developed peas, and small, immature pea-green pods rather 
than the faded and ripening ones. The peculiar greenish hue is an 
essential characteristic of freshness. 

Beans. — Beans are even more perishable than peas. As a fresh 
vegetable, both pods and seed are edible, and in their highest perfection 
for the table they must be young, fleshy, brittle and tender. The suc- 
culence and fleshiness of the pods invite destructive changes, and in 
bulk, closely packed, rot soon begins. Hence it becomes the interest 
of the distant grower to delay the gathering bey ond the stage of dietary 
perfection ; and, consequently, of the city consumer to purchase his 
supplies from the growers of his vicinage. They should be packed 
loosely in small bulk and in crates. A coarse vegetable at best, but 
nutritious and harmless when in proper condition. They are cheap, 
and therefore popular among the poorer classes. As the pod ripens 
color fades, dryness increases, they become tough and tasteless. Cattle 
will not eat them. Even when gathered in proper condition and prop- 
erly packed, deterioration soon begins, and though not actually rotten, 
the loss of succulence and brittleness denotes changes which unfit them 
for table use. 

Tomatoes. — The tomato, so universally and deservedly popular, 
among all classes of consumers of vegetables, when ripe and gathered 
and packed with ordinary care, bears carriage well, and is usually sup- 
plied to city consumers in great perfection. Those brought, in early 
spring, from the remote South have been gathered green, are packed 
with very great care, each wrapped in a separate piece of paper, and are 
thus ripened on their journey. Those supplied from the near vicinity, 
after a killing frost has bared the earth of all summer vegetation, have 



8 VEGETABLES AND FEUITS. 

been ripened under glass. When the chilling wind and falling ther- 
mometer threaten frost, the grower hastens to save the green fruit 
upon the vines. They are hastily gathered and put under glass and 
then colored red, not in fact matured. Such fruit possesses but little of 
the attractive flavor and nutrient qualities which belong to the matured 
and naturally ripened fruit, but they find ready sale, and are offered to 
the consumer in the best condition attainable. It is the business of the 
producer to supply the demand, and it is no fault of his if the luxurious 
palates of city consumers are only to be satisfied with green fruit colored 
red. I regard the tomato as a healthy, agreeable and nutritious vegeta- 
ble, but have no confidence in its cholagogue or blood-purifying qualities, 
as very many of the laity believe and some physicians claim. In the 
flesh reside all the nutritive and gustatory qualities, hence they should 
always be peeled preparatory to being eaten. The preliminary degene- 
rative change is fermentive, which rapidly progresses to the complete 
destruction of all the fleshy part, leaving nothing but the seed and thin 
but tough skin. Neither seed nor skin are digestible. Feed hogs upon 
tomatoes, and scatter the manure from the sty upon a barren field, and 
tomato plants will flourish like noxious weeds. Commingle the refuse 
skins with the slop and the hog will carefully avoid them, leaving them 
in the vessel from which he feeds. Rot will very slowly destroy tomato 
skins. Throw them into the cess-pool and they will offer an obstinate 
resistance to the putrefactive process. They disappear through dis- 
integration by dryness. Notwithstanding all this, some foolish people 
will insist that the choicest part of this popular vegetable is the skin, 
and not unfrequently I have known young children to be fed upon the 
sliced fruit without previous peeling or ordinary care to avoid the inges- 
tion of the seed. 

Cucumbers. — Perhaps no one member of the family of kitchen gar- 
den vegetables has so many greedy devourers as the cucumber. There 
is something so refreshing and exhilerating about the appearance of a 
dish of sliced cucumbers prepared for the table, and something so at- 
tractive to the palate in its peculiarly inviting and mouth-watering 
aroma, that one's self-denial oftentimes fails to protect the stomach 
from the indigestible mass, and consumers fail to appreciate the fact 
that they are vigorously masticating an aroma, deriving but little, if 
any sustenance. Why preferred for the table before maturity I do not 
know. Swine, I believe, select the full grown and matured fruit, rip- 
ened into a golden yellow color, as the choicest, and, certainly, the 
aroma is more decided and the juicy constituent is most abundant at 
maturity. For home consumption, it is gathered in early morning, 
while chilled by the morning temperature, and either immersed in cold 
water or kept in a cool place until prepared for the table. Not easily 
digested at best, yet those who eat them with such avidity are very un- 
willing to acknowledge any after ill effects, and it is assuredly true, 
that country consumers usually escape merited suffering. The cucum- 
ber carries well, resists decay, withers slightly, looses some in crispness 
and brittleness, and acquires toughness, but retains flavor for some 
days, and is usually offered for sale in a fair condition of preservation. 
Without presenting the manifest evidences of destructive change, it 
speedily undergoes some alteration which renders it exceedingly hurt- 



VEGETABLES AND FKUITS. 9 

ful to healthy digestion, and provocative of intestinal trouble. It 
would seem tlaat these evil effects were proportionate to the loss of the 
watery constituent, and thus gathering during the heat of the day, ex- 
posure, and the elapse of time, promote those changes which so seriously 
injure its dietary qualities. 

Melons. — The cantaloupe is especially illustrative of the rapidity of 
deterioration, and of the marked and sudden transitions from the stage 
of perfect maturity to one of decay, and these changes progress more 
rapidly if left, after maturity, attached to the vine and exposed to the 
air and sunlight than when gathered and properly sheltered. The ex- 
perienced grower knows precisely at what stage of ripening to gather to 
suit his mode and the distance of transportation. If distant a night's 
journey in a wagon or a few hours by rail or water, they can be oftered 
for sale in the city in perfection. But there is art in growing as well 
as tact in gathering the cantaloupe. It should be regular in shape ; 
have a well netted and deeply furrowed surface, and thick rind ; possess 
the well recognized, penetrating and tenacious fragrance ; and be thick 
and firm fleshed, juicy and high flavored. Deformed and irregularly 
shaped melons are wanting in flavor ; past ripened loose flavor and 
firmness ; insipidity is in proportion to softness and pultaceousness. A 
deep yellow colored cantaloupe should not be permitted to be sold 
in any market. In its highest state of perfection, it is delicious, nutri- 
tious and healthy fruit ; in its past ripened, decaying condition very un- 
wholesome. No cantaloupe in a state of perfection to-day can be kept 
in a proper condition until to-morrow, by any process known to me. 
The flattened and blanched under surface is always defective in flavor 
and other essential qualities. 

It may be permissible, though not strictly relevant, to refer to the 
quality especially illustrated by this melon, which, as expressed in 
ordinary parlance, some fruits and vegetables possess of imparting their 
peculiar and characteristic flavor, and odor also, to certain oleaginous 
articles of diet, when packed together in partially or wholly air-tight 
compartments. It is, perhaps, more properly the absorption by such 
substances of the volatile oils, which give to vegetables and fruits their 
aroma ; and hence the impregnation of milk, butter and other oleagin- 
ous substances, with the flavor of certain fruits and vegetables, is due to 
the facility and extent of such absorption of the volatile oils. How far 
this may affect the nutritive and digestible qualities of such articles, I 
do not know. It may also be added that certain vegetables grown in 
near proximity reciprocally impoverish the flavor of each — for in- 
stance, the squash, pumpkin or gourd, grown sufficiently near the canta- 
loupe will destroy the flavor of the latter. 

But more important is the fact that certain vegetables, and per- 
haps all to a greater or less degree, will, when fed in a green state to 
cows, impart their flavor and other qualities to the milk. Every dairy- 
man knows full well that garlic, the onion, cabbage, turnips, and even 
green clover will impart a distinctive aroma to the milk ; and I feel 
assured that I have frequently seen cases of sudden and protracted 
diarrhoeal complaints in children produced by milk from cows fed upon 
vegetable slops ; and I am equally confident that I have traced similar 



10 VEGETABLES AND FKUITS. • 

cases to certain conditions of the mother's milk, due to the ingestion of 
improper and unwholsome vegetables and fruits. 

Turni'ps. — Dr. H, C. Bastian, in his experiments on spontaneous 
generation, made much use of a solution of turnip, as being an espe- 
cially favorable medium for the growth of bacteria and other micro- 
zymes; and my friend, Dr. J. S. Billings, U. S. A., in repeating Dr. 
Bastian's experiments, found that bacteria developed more rapidly in 
a solution of the turnip than in any other medium employed by him. 
This fact may be of but little value as a proof of the speedy deteriora- 
tion of the turnip, but in view of other researches, as yet, perhaps, not 
determinative of any practical conclusion, the interesting inquiry pre- 
sents itself — what relation does the development of bacteria bear to 
the degenerative change which vegetables and fruits undergo, and how 
far such microzymes may be concerned in the causation of disease ? 
Accepting the researches of M. Pasteur, that " putrefaction is a fer- 
mentation determined by infusoria of the family of vibrios and by 
bacteria," and the further conclusion, deducible from the researches of 
M. Davaine, that septic matter owes its toxic properties to the develop- 
ment of bacteria, it requires but little stretch of the imagination to 
conceive how purulent infection might follow the introduction into the 
system of bacteria generated during the process of vegetable decom- 
position, unless it be maintained that such infusoria differ in their viru- 
lence from those of septic matter. This is but a passing suggestion. 

Observations on Fruits. — There are a few general observations ap- 
plicable to fruits, which I may be permitted to epitomize from the 
recent work of Prof. Pavy, on " Food and Dietetics." Fruit is a 
modification of the leaf, and in the green state exhibits much of its 
chemical composition. As maturity advances, special characteristics 
develop. At first, like other green parts of the plant, the fruit absorbs 
and decomposes the carbonic acid of the atmosphere, liberating oxygen 
and assimilating the carbon. As the ripening progresses, oxygen is 
absorbed and carbonic acid given out, and some of the proximate prin- 
ciples contained in the unripe fruit, particularly the acids and the 
tannin, in part disappear, apparently by oxidation. At the same time, 
the starch undergoes transformation into sugar, and the insoluble 
pectose into pectin and other soluble substances. In this manner the 
fruit arrives at a state of perfection. But oxidation advances, the 
sugar and remaining acid become destroyed, flavor diminishes, and de- 
terioration sets in ; and if these changes are allowed to pursue their 
ordinary course, the pericarp undergoes decay, and the seed is set 
free. It is thus manifest that the stage of complete ripeness is quickly 
followed by degenerative changes, which rapidly progress to the entire 
destruction of the sarcooarp, unless, by some method of preservation, 
the oxidation can be arrested at the stage of ripeness. 

The strawberry season does not properly, in any particular locality, 
extend beyond thirty, but in our northern cities it not unfrequently 
runs through sixty, and perhaps even ninety, days. Since the introduc- 
tion of improved varieties and more intelligent culture, with careful 
gathering, and packing in small open baskets in crates, favored by the 
rapidity of transportation, the berries can be supplied to consumers at 
great distances from the localities where grown, in a condition quite 



VEGETABLES AND FRUITS. 11 

«qual to the demand of a prudent and healthy consumption. Good 
.strawberries should be plump and firm, with a dry and unbroken sur- 
face, and should not be separated from the cap until prepared for use. 
Rough and unnecessary handling, bruising, moisture and bulk promote 
fermentation and speedy decay. Capped berries will not long resist 
destructive change, and neither bulking on the salesman's stand, nor 
sale by any fixed measure, should be permitted in any market. 

Strawberries, like all very small seeded fruits, not excepting the 
blackberry, so much valued by many for its alleged astringent proper- 
ties, are laxative in their tendency. The seeds are absolutely indigest- 
ible, and pass through the bowels uninjured by the digestive fluids. 
To this quality, to their locally irritating influence upon the mucous 
membrane of the alimentary tract, and to their liability to cling to the 
folds of, and find lodgment 'in, the innumerable crypts of the mem- 
brane, add the deleterious influence of the fleshy part in a state of fer- 
mentation and decay, and surely nothing more is needed to admonish 
you of the danger of ingesting such deteriorated fruit. Especially ob- 
jectionable are these small seeded fruits to young children, to whom they 
are frequently fed during the period when the follicular apparatus of 
the digestive tract is vmdergoing rapid evolution, and perhaps disturbed 
in its normal progress by some one or more of the coincident develop- 
m^ental operations. 

These examples are believed to be sufficient to satisfy you of the 
necessity of the inquiry to which I invite you, but, as yet, the picture is 
far from complete. Before proceeding to describe the process o^ fresh- 
ening stale vegetables and fruits, now so generally practiced by the 
market dealers, I must briefly refer to the market system in operation 
in many American cities, which I hold is not only wrong in itself, but 
productive of greater wrong upon the communities. 

Market Systems. — In many of the large cities of this country 
there is a class of dealers, generally known as " hucksters," who stand 
between the producer and consumer. They purchase from the pro- 
ducers fresh vegetables and fruits in large quantities, at prices far be- 
low the rates paid by consumers, always overstock themselves in 
quantity and variety, preferring to carry over to another market day 
the surplus rather than loose the opportunity of accommodating a cus- 
tomer. Having, by a system of market regulations established by 
municipalities in their generous zeal to promote business and to foster 
trading, secured, through the payment of a bonus, the right of occu- 
pancy, upon the payment of an annual rental, all the stalls in the regu- 
lar market places allotted to the sale of fresh vegetables, they estab- 
lish a monopoly so exclusive that the husbandman cannot penetrate 
any nearer than the nearest curb line or foot walk, and there, if at all, 
offer his products for sale, otherwise he must compete with the monopo- 
list or public auctioneer, in bonus bidding, for a suitable stand under 
shelter. The huckster's capital consists in his right of occupancy thus 
secured, perhaps a horse and wagon and a very small amount of money. 
He purchases to sell and promises payment after sale. Competition is 
■consequently not between the dealers to secure the choicest and freshest 
products, but between the growers to secure a purchaser. Far from his 



12 VEGETABLES AND FRUITS. 

garden with his wagon and team, he wisely submits to a sacrifice rather 
than return with his perishable commodities. This bidding for a pur- 
chaser does not inure to the benefit of consumers ; it simply enhances 
the profits of the dealers. Hucksters have little or nothing at risk^ 
and deal exclusively for the profit, and if supplied from the surplus of 
the previous day buy only to freshen their wilted and decaying stock- 
In brief the system — 

1st. Regulates the supply by separating the producer from the 
consumer. 

2d. Enhances prices to the consumer, without benefiting the pro- 
ducer. 

3d. Compels consumers to purchase stale if not deteriorated vege- 
tables, because the supply is controlled by middlemen, and not by 
amount produced. 

4th. Supply and demand do not bear their proper trade relation 
ship, because supply can only reach consumers through middlemen who 
control the only channels of trade. 

5th. Consumers cannot make quality a basis of value, for the good 
and bad are mixed. The fresh is made to sell the stale. '' 

" Freshening " Fruits. — The system of freshening green vegetables 
is extensively employed by many dealers in perishable vegetables and 
fruits, and is so cunningly devised and adroitly executed that it will 
escape any but the most careful and cultivated observation. It can be 
most practically exposed by individual and descriptive illustrations. 
Cabbage and lettuce are freshened by stripping off the external layer of 
leaves and clipping the end of the foot stalk, and this process is re- 
peated from time to time until the head is either sold or is so reduced 
in size as to become unmerchantable. The process of stripping brings 
to the exterior the blanched and whitened leaves, and it oftentimes hap- 
pens that the blanched head most eagerly sought has been stripped 
sundry times, and while its surface is apparently fresh and crisp the 
center is in a state of decay. Cabbage at certain seasons of the year 
will bear this process without rapid deterioration, but lettuce is much, 
more perishable. Beets, radishes and other roots which are offered for 
sale bunched, speedily deteriorate in moderately warm weather. This 
begins first at the circumference of the leaves, and actual decay at that 
part of the leaves and midribs compressed by tying, hence freshening is 
performed by clipping or tearing off the faded parts, and this process is. 
repeated until the midrib is cut short to the crown, and then they are 
either bunched by the extremities of the roots or sold by measure, so 
that not unfrequently the fresh beets upon our tables in May and June 
have been hauled from market to market for a week or more. Peas 
and beans are offered for sale bulked upon the market stand, and the 
salesman always measures from the bottom. The surplus from previ- 
ous sale days is heaped upon the stand, and the entire surface neatly 
and adroitly covered with a sufficient quantity of the more recently 
gathered. Great taste is displayed in making the stale surplus look 
attractive, and much tact is acquired in measuring so as to disturb the 
surface but little and secure for the purchaser the full measure of th& 



VEGETABLES AND FEUITS. 13 

underlying deteriorated legumen. Spinage and kale, after the first rush 
of the season is over, are generally so cheap as to render the freshening 
process unremunerative, but when dear the latter is freshened by clip- 
ping or tearing off the faded parts of the leaves, reclipping the foot 
stalks and sprinkling. Spinage in cold weather can be preserved in a 
fair condition for some days. But did it never occur to you that a crop 
which is left standing in the open ground during winter could not be 
gathered in such quantities as is sometimes offered in the markets dur- 
ing hard weather, when the surface of the ground is covered with a foot 
of snow for weeks and sometimes months ? The salesman will tell you 
the crop was protected with a layer of straw or thick brush, and by re- 
moving this it was easily gathered. And so far he tells the truth, but 
if you undertake to remove straw loosely spread upon the earth and 
covered by six or twelve inches of frozen snow, you will soon learn it is 
far from an easy task. The truth is, the crop is gathered before the 
snow falls, kept in a cool, secure place, and retained frequently until the 
price rules high. 

Strawberries, raspberries and blackberries are offered for sale either 
in bulk or in pint or quart measures as transported. If in bulk, the 
freshening process is executed in the same manner as other products 
offered for sale in like manner, by carefully concealing the stale and 
deteriorated surplus from previous days by a neatly arranged surface 
covering with fresh fruit from the near gardens. And great care is ex- 
ercised in properly placing each berry so as to thoroughly hide the 
underlying fermenting mass. If in baskets, the top is dressed with 
fresh fruit and without loss of measure. A dealer can purchase a crate 
containing fifty quart baskets of strawberries from a producer, empty 
them upon his stand, refill each basket by placing every berry, under- 
sell the producer standing alongside, and make money. His baskets 
will be " heaping full," and each berry will present a bright glossy 
fresh surface to the purchaser, while the producer's lot will have sunken 
below the margin of his baskets, and the surface of the topmost layer of 
berries will have lost glossiness. Thus the baskets are freshened. 

I may be mistaken, but my casual observations lead me to the con- 
jecture that illy formed and defective fruit is frequently the result of 
imperfect and deficient fecundation, and I have sometimes thought we 
might apply certain phenomena, which are constantly occurring in the 
vegetable kingdom, to the study and elucidation of the cause of mon- 
trosities in the animal. 

Certain conditions are essential to secure complete fecundations of 
fruit and grain bearing plants — sunlight, a certain amount of warmth 
and humidity of the atmosphere, requisite moisture and fertility of the 
earth, and adaptation of the soil to the vegetable growth. Cold, dash- 
ing rains falling at inopportune times, by washing to the ground, and 
continuous blasts of wind, by blowing away the pollen granules, seriously 
interfere with perfect fecundation. For instance, I have seen two 
fields of wheat, each on opposite sides of the same road, or adjoining, 
with like exposure, and growing upon soil presenting no obvious dif- 
ferences, one yielding abundantly, the other but a scanty crop. The 
latter had been caught just at the stage of full bloom by a rain and 



14 VEGETABLES AND FRUITS. 

wind storm ; the other escaped because it was either in advance or be- 
hind its neighboring field in growth and development ; and, again, 
when I have seen one field yielding heads of wheat with a full plump 
grain for each ovum, and an adjoining, or other stalks in the same field, 
and springing with other spears from the same root, yielding heads with 
light and shriveled and absent grains, I have inferred that in the first 
fecundation was complete, in some incomplete, and in other germ cells 
it failed entirely. In this suggestion I antagonize the accepted views 
of agriculturists, who so generally attribute these defects and failures 
alone to atmospheric and climatic influences operating during the stages 
of development and ripening. 

Impregnation of the seed-bearing flowers, or its equivalent organ, is 
absolutely necessary in all grain-bearing plants, or else the product 
will be a failure. When single spears of corn stand alone, the ears 
never fill, because the pollen from the top-gallant fails to reach every 
germ cell through the silk ; and if two rows of corn, each of a distinct 
variety, be planted alongside, every ear will contain grains of both 
varieties more or less distinctly marked ; but if from any cause any 
part of the silk of any incipient ear be destroyed previous to fecunda- 
tion, no grains will be developed in the cells connecting with such in- 
jured silk ; and imperfect impregnation will find many illustrations in 
the illy formed and defectively developed grains. 

All flowers are sexual, being furnished with the fertilizing or fertile 
organs, or bisexual, posessing both stamens and pistils, varying in num- 
ber from a single stamen and pistil to an indefinite number of each. 
In all fruit-bearing plants complete fecundation is essential to the per- 
fection of the seed, and, as it is a rule with but few exceptions, that the 
full development of the sarcocarp is concurrent with complete maturity 
of the seed, it is manifest that the perfection of the latter, like the per- 
fection of the seed, must depend upon proper fecundation. The first 
dropping of young fruit, which even after an abundant show of blos- 
soms, sometimes extends to the whole orchard crop, is, says Watson, 
mainly due to the imperfection or total failure of the fertilization, 
whether this arises fro^ drought and glaring sunshine, from unseasona- 
ble cold, an inopportune storm, or from other less manifest causes ; all 
such dropped fruit is seedless or germless. Again, as it will occasion- 
ally happen, a fruit grown among a number upon the same tree, will be 
seedless, and invariably such a fruit will be deficient in development 
— if not illy formed, certainly diminutive in size. Neither the cucum- 
ber nor the cantaloupe will fructify under glass, except by the actual 
and artificial contact of the staminate with the pistillate flower, even 
though the requisite conditions of humidity, temperature, sunlight, 
adaptation of the soil and vigorous growth may all be present. The 
plants are monoecious, and the sexually distinct blossoms grow in near 
proximity, yet the crop will prove a signal failure unless artificial im- 
pregnation is carefully executed ; and this is true of all fruit-bearing 
plants unless the fruit-bearing blossom is bisexual. Hence, it is evi- 
dent that some condition, which pertains exclusively to the open air, is 
essential to complete fecundation in the moncecious and dioecious 
plants. 



YEGETABLES AND FEUITS. 15 

The strawberry plant presents itself in distinct stammate and pis- 
tillate varieties, and with bisexual flowers. If you destroy in irregu- 
lar patches the pistils projecting in great numbers from the exterior 
surface of the ovum of a pistillate variety, or in like manner occlude 
the stile tubes, each one of which communicates with a germ cell, and 
leave the undisturbed pistils and stile tubes in near proximity to a stam- 
inate flower, those parts of the fruit will fecundate and develop to ma- 
turity, whereas the parts connecting with the destroyed pistils or oc- 
cluded stile tubes will remain undeveloped, and the fruit as a whole will 
be illy shapen and deformed. Most of our fruit-bearing trees have 
perfect bisexual blossoms, with more than one stamen and a number of 
pistils, hence, reasoning from analogy, I have reached the conclusion 
that knotty, irregularly shapen, and defectively developed apples, pears, 
peaches, and other fruits, result from defective and imperfect fecunda- 
tion. 

If these suggestions and observations are entitled to consideration, 
and worthy of being classed as facts, surely I have established the prop- 
osition that defective development in fruits is in a measure due to im- 
perfect fecundation. I shall not, at present, undertake to estimate their 
value in determining the nature and causes of the degenerative changes 
which speedily take place in fresh fruits, nor the effect of such imper- 
fectly developed fruits when consumed as food. 

The final considerations relate exclusively to the remedy for the 
imposition practiced in the sale of fresh vegetables and fruits. A sys- 
tem of competent inspection will undoubtedly accomplish much, and cor- 
rect many of the alleged abuses, and not only must the plan be wisely reg- 
ulated, but the officials must be persons skilled in the art of gathering 
and packing, and in the transportation of perishable fruits and vegeta- 
bles. No mere novice who has passed a lounging life in a city, abso- 
lutely ignorant of the essential qualities of fresh fruits and vegetables, 
too weak to resist temptation, and too timid to fearlessly discharge a 
disagreeable duty, would accomplish any good. To this must be added 
the right of confiscation. The enormity of the crime must be brought 
directly home to the practical and pecuniary necessities of the offender. 
The business of huckstering can be conducted in a proper manner with 
profit, and I would rather not believe that every man engaged in the 
business resorts to the tricks of the trade. 

But the most effectual means for the accomplishment of satisfactory 
results will be the establishment of free market places for the accom- 
modation of the producers. Afford ample opportunities for the utiliza- 
tion of the products of his labor, and cease compelling him to sink his 
scanty earnings in the enormous profits of middlemen. The perishable 
products of the farm are introduced into cities for immediate consump- 
tion, and every obstacle which obstructs the ready access of the con- 
sumer to the producer should be removed, and municipalities should 
abandon such sources of revenue. Thus may value be enhanced to the 
producer and diminished to the consumer. Quality will be improved 
and health promoted. 



THE 



GATHERING, PACKING, TRANSPORTATION 



AND SALE OF 



FRESH VEGETABLES AND FRUITS. 



COMPETEKT INSPECTION 



FREE MARKETS FOR PRODUCERS. 



(Read before the American Public Health Association, Philadelphia, 18*74.) 



By SAMUEL C. BUSEY, M.D., Washington, D. C 



[Reprint from THE SANITARIAN, April, 1875.] 



NEW YORK: 
SANITARIAN PUBLICATION OFFICE, 234 BROADWAY, 

opposite the post-office. 

1875. 



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